WTO drops labour issues

By Alok Mukherjee

NEW DELHI, OCT. 2. Developing countries have scored a major point at the international trade forum - the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has `dropped' all labour-related issues from its agenda.

Top officials of the WTO told The Hindu in Geneva recently that labour issues had been passed on to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which the developing countries feel would be the right forum.

The inclusion of labour and environmental issues had been a point of discord between developed and developing countries since 1995, when the Uruguay Round of the WTO formally came into operation. The developed world was pushing for their inclusion on the ground that developing countries had unfavourable labour and environmental standards which provided them with an unfair competitive edge in international trade. On their part, the developing countries said that labour and environmental issues on a trade agenda amounted to erecting non- tariff barriers against exports from the developing countries.

The ILO will now look into all labour-related issues and prepare a report on the social impact of globalisation, to be presented to the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan.

WTO officials pointed out that this forward movement for the developing countries has come about because of the increased role they are playing within the organisation. The international perception that the developed countries manage to load the WTO agenda in their favour persists, but the developing countries are now taking a coordinated stand on issues of concern to them and presenting their case with alternative scenarios to those presented by the developed countries.

``Earlier, the developing countries mostly stalled progress in negotiations and did not fully spell out their alternatives. This has changed now and well-argued cases are being presented by the developing countries which are difficult to ignore,'' the officials said and pointed to the difficulty the WTO is facing in preparing an acceptable agenda for launching a new trade round at Doha.

``The WTO has a total membership of 142 Governments, of which 122 are developing countries. It is nearly impossible to reach an agreement within WTO without the developing countries,'' the officials said. But developing countries succeed when they have a coordinated position, as is being attempted at the various pre- Doha meetings of what is called ``like-minded countries.''

On the dropping of labour issues, the officials said that the change of guard in the U.S. also helped, in that, the Bush administration is not greatly focused on labour issues. Consequently, the European Union (EU) was left to fight a lone battle.

The E.U. is also pushing the environment issue on to the WTO agenda. A simplistic formulation of its position is that in case of a conflict between a trade issue and a multilateral environment agreement, the latter would prevail. The developing countries have taken the position that the WTO's main concern is with trade matters and in case of a conflict, the trade agreement should prevail. As of now, the WTO is stuck on this matter.

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